NARRATIVE. 87 



gives the appearance of two horseshoes joining in the middle, as if 

 two separate streams had happened to come together here. This 

 peculiar conformation throws the masses of water together in the 

 middle, whence they are thrown up again by the resulting force, as if 

 shot out of a cannon. The turmoil is farther increased by projecting 

 rocks, (perhaps piles of fragments from above,) which, on the right 

 particularly, shoot the water inwards towards the centre, at right 

 angles with the course of the river. Then the sharp projecting shelves 

 which project, especially on the right side, through the falling sheet, 

 cause a succession of little falls in the face of the great one. 



All these peculiarities are due no doubt to the nature 1 of the rock, 

 which, dipping slightly from the fall, and not being underlain by softer 

 strata, as at Niagara, its recession is not regular, but depends on the 

 accidental dislodgment of blocks on the edge, by frost, collision of 

 ice, &c., and the blocks again, when fallen are not so readily decom- 

 posed or removed. Hence, also, the shallowness of the channel below. 

 Some of our friends who meanwhile had been exploring above the 

 Falls, reported a small fall, ten or fifteen feet in height, about half 

 a mile above, where the slate was replaced by sienite. 



We had some thought of proceeding up the river to Dog Lake, 

 two days' journey to the north. But our men grumbled very much 

 at the thought of the portages, (one of which from its destructive- 

 ness to shoes is called Knife, or Devil Portage ;) then our canoes 

 were too large for the undertaking, and might possibly be knocked 

 to pieces ; so we concluded to give that up. 



July 24/j. Last night was warm and rainy, and we started down 

 the river this morning in a drizzle. We stopped at the clay-bank, 

 above which we had encamped before, to get some clay-stones, 

 which occur here hi abundance at the water's edge. These are 

 nodules of clay, some soft, others of the hardness of chalk or harder, 

 often in shapes requiring little aid of the knife to transform them into 

 fantastic images. Capt. Bayfield says the bottom of Lake Superior is 

 of clay, which readily indurates on exposure to the air.* 



Kaministiquia, according to our native authorities, signifies " the 

 river that goes far about," which this river certainly does, though in 



* Bouchette's British Dominions in North America, I., 127. 



